The why and impact of Ethereum project being a ‘kind of a clusterf*$k’

Recent corrections notwithstanding, the last few months have been very bullish for the larger cryptocurrency market, with the likes of both Bitcoin and Ethereum climbing to new ATHs on the charts. What their performances have also done, however, is fuel the longstanding contest and tribalism between the two cryptos’ communities. With many now vocally speculating that ETH might flip BTC soon, the aforementioned debate has only gathered more steam.

The same was the subject of discussion between Arcane Assets’ Eric Wall, David Hoffman, and Ryan Sean Adams on the latest episode of Bankless, with the trio particularly focused on whether ETH can be accounted for as “sound money.”

According to Wall, there is a distinct difference between how the Bitcoin and Ethereum communities view the idea of “sound money.” While for Bitcoiners the predictability of monetary policy is foundational, Wall stated that many in the Ethereum community care more about “securing Ethereum and securing their DeFi systems by having a sufficient security budget for that.”

The Arcane Assets CIO added,

“You [Ethereum] don’t have any qualms about changing the emission rate of Ether to accommodate what the system needs. I do think of Bitcoin as having an upper hand in becoming a dominant store of value and a medium of exchange because of its strong, immutable monetary policy.”

Ether, he went on to say, “can become some sort of money,” but not the kind of sound money that Bitcoin can be. Here, it’s worth noting that Wall does believe that Ether can become much sounder money than fiat currency.

The exec popularly know as the ‘altcoin slayer’ also touched upon what he thinks Ethereans are getting wrong. True to his label, Wall didn’t mince his words when he said,

“The entire Ethereum project is a mess. Now, some can think it’s a beautiful, innovative mess, but I actually do think that governance-wise, it’s kind of a clusterf*ck. It’s not the best system out there.”

He added,

“Ethereans are easily misled into thinking that their project is much better than it actually is and they underestimate the systematic risks being built inside the Ethereum ecosystem.”

What’s more, Wall also accused the “stewards and thought leaders” of Ethereum of ignoring such concerns.

Finally, the exec also took aim at Ethereum somewhat “compromising” on the tenets of decentralization, despite the fact that it seemed to be doing much better than the likes of Solana, Avalanche, and Binance Smart Chain on that count.

Curiously, while that may be the case, according to some like Synthetix’s Cain Warwick, projects such as Solana remain the biggest “existential threats to Ethereum,” with the developer claiming that Ethereum’s inability to scale in time has created such market opportunities. Even BSC, a common target for critics of centralization, has been able to capitalize on the “overflow of activity that should have been on Ethereum.”